Campo Santo's next big game, Valley of the Gods, has been put on hold by parent company Valve, in order to have the developers help work on Half-Life: Alyx, as well as other as-yet-unnamed Valve projects. This comes just over a year and a half since the acquisition of the Firewatch developer by Valve.
Campo Santo has been a beloved developer since the creation of Firewatch, its first and only game as of the end of 2019. The mix of beautiful aesthetics, first-person storytelling, and relaxing gameplay, gelled well with gamers the world over, even if the experience was shortlived and far from your typical game. Valve acquired the studio in April 2018, shortly after the company's announcement of its second game, In the Valley of the Gods.
That game could have followed a similar style to Firewatch, with players playing one of a pair of archaeologists exploring ancient Egyptian ruins while trying to uncover the mysteries and taking gorgeous pictures while they do it. But the future of that game has now been brought into question, as Valve has announced it's been put on indefinite hold while the developers work on other projects.
"To fans looking forward to In the Valley of Gods, it’s probably clear that the optimistic "2019" at the end of the announcement trailer isn’t going to be accurate. In the end, Valve Time makes fools of us all," Campo Santo co-founder, Jake Rodkin told Polygon.
He went on to describe how once the team joined Valve they started helping out on projects like Half-Life: Alyx, like DotA Underlords, on the Steam platform, and slowly everyone slowed their work on Valley of the Gods. It will probably come back at some point, we're told, but as and when, remains to be seen.